Michael Tomasky's Blog, page 36

Elizabeth Edwards | Michael Tomasky

How bizarre that it was just two days ago that word came that Elizabeth Edwards' doctors recommended against further treatment, a step that suggests the person's time is short, but still measured in weeks, usually; and then boom, it was just yesterday that she passed away at 61 from breast cancer.

I always feel a poignancy about people like this who didn't ask for the spotlight but were thrust into it. The one false step I felt she made was that time she stood there with her husband in March 2007 to announce that though her cancer had returned, John's campaign would continue. That was mostly on him of course, and it was one of many signs that made me really suspicious of the guy: your wife's cancer starts attacking her again and you're not suspending your campaign? It's quite possible that she was complicit in this against her will, in that way political wives often have to be.

But far overwhelming that, she handled many difficult public stresses with grace in the last few years. Can you imagine being humiliated by a jackass spouse in front of the world and having to fight cancer; having to leave him while knowing that it meant that your life partner wouldn't be there with you for the end of the battle? And then still working in the public arena for the things she believed in. And on top of all that, she had to bury a child, which is clearly the worst thing that can happen to a person in this life (I know; my parents had to).

She took her share of criticism for standing by her husband for a long time, some of it, as I recall, from me. But now the balance sheets are in, and I think they show clearly that she faced hideous circumstances and handled them with increasing dignity. I hope much work on breast cancer and other health-related issues she cared about is carried on in her name. She certainly earned that, and did so under sometimes savage conditions.

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Obama's outburst | Michael Tomasky

I loved Obama's little blast at the left yesterday. People need to get on the reality train.

Okay, first of all, it is certainly true, as I have written many many times, that the White House messed up the politics of this. They should have been out there for months framing this vote, and they should have done everything they could (which is not a great deal, but still) to try to force the houses of Congress to cast votes on the tax question before the election. So stipulated.

Today, we learn more depressing news along these lines via Noam Schieber at TNR, who reports:

Within the administration, the split over whether to mount a tax-cut offensive broke down largely along wonk-operative lines. The wonks spent the last year mystified that the White House was ducking the fight when the substantive merits were so one-sided. The operatives brooded that the politics could abruptly turn against them, despite polling showing little public appetite for the upper-income cuts. "They view it through the class warfare stuff—Kerry in 2004, Gore in 2000," says one administration official. "They worry that they'll get painted as lefties, tax-raisers."

At key moments, including one internal discussion this spring, the political team declined to make a concerted push before Election Day. "The political people were like, 'It's a mess, let's not deal with it now,' " says another official involved. (In fairness, the wonks were divided on policy details even as they all favored a quick resolution. A White House spokesperson says the congressional math made the discussion academic: "The Senate didn't have the votes.") This created the post-election predicament, in which the GOP could filibuster any less-than-complete extension, betting that the public would blame Obama if the rates reset in January. Such was the frustration among the wonks that, when asked to explain their tax-cut strategy, they'd morbidly joke that there was no strategy, just an "approach."

The key word is "worry," in the last sentence of the first graf. That's all Democrats do on taxes. Worry worry worry. It's pathetic. The Obama White House was pathetic.

At the same time, the votes for the Democratic position never existed in either house of Congress. Just because the House passed it after election day doesn't mean they could have done so before election day. The White House should have made more of an effort here, as I have also said many times. But it's also true that the numbers were the numbers. The votes weren't there.

And now, Mary Landrieu, of all people, is out calling the extension of tax cuts for the wealthy morally corrupt? Mary Landrieu? Is she kidding? She voted for the cuts in the first place. What was she doing in September behind closed doors trying to persuade Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh and other centrists to avoid moral corruption and vote to end high-bracket tax cuts? If she was, then bully for her. But let's just say there's nothing in her public record that I'm aware of that would indicate she did. She's one of the most cautious and conservative Democrats in Washington.

As for the left, I thought Obama was mostly right here:

So this notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for, for a hundred years - but because there was a provision in there that they didn't get, that would have affected maybe a couple million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people, and the potential for lower premiums for a hundred million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.

Now, if that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let's face it, we will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position, and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves, and sanctimonious about how pure our intensions are and how tough we are. And in the meantime the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out. That can't be the measure of how we think about our public service. That can't be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat.

This is a big, diverse country. Not everybody agrees with us...

There are a lot of criticisms to make of this president and his team. I've been making them. But opposing this deal requires thinking one of three things, it seems to me:
1. That the votes existed to defeat the Republicans.
2. That the votes didn't exist, but Obama should have stood his ground, and if taxes for everyone went up, so be it.
3. That a principle is a principle is a principle, and to blazes with the consequences.

Well, 1 just wasn't true. Was never going to be true. Number 2 would have resulted in Republicans spending two years saying Obama broke his number one promise and raised middle-class taxes; I suppose you can think Democrats might win that fight, but I don't see how anyone watching the last two years closely could possibly think that. Number 3 is a position that activists and passionate ideologues can take, but politicians can't, except in rare cases.

I think a lot of the left's anger has to do not with the outcome per se, but with how we got there. The White House basically spent two weeks signaling, we're gonna cave. Then they caved on the key question of higher-end tax rates. That's the narrative people on the left saw. They're not caring that, for example, in numerical terms, the Democrats got the upper hand out of this deal. You read that right. The upper hand. Ezra Klein:

If you look at the numbers alone, the tax cut deal looks to have robbed Republicans blind. The GOP got around $95 billion in tax cuts for wealthy Americans and $30 billion in estate tax cuts. Democrats got $120 billion in payroll-tax cuts, $40 billion in refundable tax credits (Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and education tax credits), $56 billion in unemployment insurance, and, depending on how you count it, about $180 billion (two-year cost) or $30 billion (10-year cost) in new tax incentives for businesses to invest.

Obviously, that's not how this deal is being understood on the left. A lot of that has to do with Obama's public posture in the days leading up to the deal. If he'd thundered a bit more and emanated some strength rather than weakness, people might have been more willing to see the strong parts of the deal.

So he and his people blew the optics. But critics on the left are being completely unreasonable. Both of those things can be true, and are true. And believe you me, the White House understands that withering attacks from the left don't hurt Obama politically. Average Americans who aren't committed news junkies are hearing that the two parties actually cut a deal, and they're hearing leading economists say that it should be basically good for the economy (reality check, conservative readers: the two parts of this deal that aren't stimulative are exactly the parts the GOP pushed for, the high-end tax cuts and the estate tax rate-easing). That does not hurt a sitting president.

Anyone who thinks this country is ever going to elect a president more liberal than Barack Obama is in fantasy land. And if Obama hasn't been liberal enough for you, as he has not been for me on many occasions, then figure out an effective way to make him be more liberal. But all this spoon-banging over a deal that a) was inevitable - you lose an election like the D's lost this one, you're going to eat some shit - and b) came out in fact considerably better than anyone anticipated, accomplishes nothing beyond emotional self-satisfaction, which of course for some people is the real point of politics.

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The tax deal | Michael Tomasky

Liberals may not like it, but President Obama actually won useful concessions from Republicans in this deal

It may still be true that Barack Obama folded and let the liberal base down and didn't put up a fight. But it's now also true, lo and behold, that the tax deal with the Republicans announced last night is far better than any Democrat could have expected.

Yes, it extends the Bush tax cuts on all households, including those above $250,000. Yes, the Republicans also got a compromise on the estate tax that's much more to their liking than to Democrats'. The estate tax, dubbed the "death tax" by Republicans some years ago in an effort to wipe out completely this tax paid by less than 3% of all decedents' estates to begin with, used to be imposed on estates starting at $1m. Over the years, the GOP has had the power to push that upwards.

But those, like the Bush tax cuts, were temporary deals. And they were set to expire at the end of this year, returning the levy to the $1m level if Congress did nothing. So Congress did something. The change was something the Republicans could support, but not their whole enchilada. The current deal is $3.5m exemption, 45% rate after that. This new deal creates a $5m exemption, and a 35% rate after that. The cost is around $10bn.

Aside from that, the White House managed to get some meaningful Democratic priorities in there. Unemployment benefits will be extended for 13 months, longer than many had expected. That's at a cost of around $60bn. This is one one that Republicans had to swallow hard.

To nearly everyone's surprise, there's a payroll tax holiday of one year for employees. All employed Americans pay 6.2% of their wages (up to about $107,000, above which wages are exempt) into the social security system. This would go down to 4.2% for one year, putting more money in earners' pockets: about $1,000 for an average earner, and $2,136 for someone who earns the full $107,000 or more.

This is an idea that had some bipartisan support back at the beginning of the financial crisis, but I think it's fair to say it's more a Democratic idea than not. And according to reports, and this is important, the social security trust fund will be held harmless – that is, the money lost from this tax holiday will be replaced from the general revenue – so this is not some side-door sneak assault on social security.

Finally, there's a White House proposal from earlier this year to allow businesses to deduct 100% of new expenses for the next two years. These last three items cost money, meaning they add to the deficit, which the Republicans oppose and have filibustered and otherwise blocked, or tried to, time and again (except when something involves helping the rich, like cutting high-end tax rates and the estate tax, when GOPers don't care about the deficit).

At any rate, they gave some ground; more than I'd expected. Some $200bn or more is going into pumping up the economy. That is stimulus. This deal is sort of a second stimulus bill, even though it is not large enough to make a huge difference.

This doesn't mean liberals will be happy. The narrative of "weak Obama" is already set in concrete, and most people would rather be mad than pleasantly surprised. We'll watch over the next few days to see if any of that unhappiness is translating into any meaningful number of votes against the deal in either house of Congress.

The White House shouldn't walk away from the deal feeling good. It didn't have to come to this, and these last couple of weeks have been a real political nadir for Democrats. Obama still failed here to keep a central campaign promise that was important to liberals – that tax rates go back to 39% on the top 2% of earners. He and all the Democrats need to learn here that they have to fight harder and earlier and with more unity (yeah, right!) in the future, or they're just going to keep ceding ground.

Still, this does constitute an actual compromise. Both sides agreed to things they didn't like. One supposes that's progress.

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The tea party and foreign policy | Michael Tomasky

On a day that one tea party leader pleaded with Sarah Palin to run for Republican National Committee chair (swift reply: no thanks! that sounds like a...job!), it's worth remembering that as much as she is a darling of the tea party movement on domestic issues, she is not one of them at all on foreign policy.

Barry Gewen has an interesting piece up at TNR explaining why. Noting that tea partiers tend toward isolationist foreign policy positions, he observes:

There was a truce within the party until the elections, but now, as Richard Viguerie warned, "a massive, almost historic battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party begins." Onlookers can expect to hear a great deal of name calling in coming months as charges of "isolationist" and "imperialist" fly back and forth.

At the center of this battle, of course, is Sarah Palin. She has allied herself firmly with the Republican hawks, opposing any cuts in defense spending and generally calling for a more activist and interventionist America throughout the world. She is on record in support of an attack on Iran. To much of the press and the punditocracy, she is the darling of the Tea Partiers, but that's not how it looks to many inside the movement, and if you want to hear the worst of the vituperation aimed her way, you should look not in the direction of liberals and Democrats, but at the Ron Paul wing of the Tea Party movement. Accused of hijacking the movement for the neoconservatives, she is called "a wolf in sheep's clothing," "simplistic," "senseless and deranged," "close-minded," "arrogant," "a neocon Stepford wife."

Palin's not changing her stripes on foreign policy questions. Remember who her most prominent national adviser is.

And the the tea party won't change its stripes either. So push may come to shove on this question someday, I suppose, but only if some foreign policy question really dislodges the economy as our main concern. And even then, well, I think back to the months after 9-11, when that was the case, and even then, Ron Paul and his like were awfully lonely voices in the GOP. Granted, the next Congress will have many Pauls (well, two literal ones, but a sizeable number of figurative ones). But I still don't see libertarian/tea party-style foreign policy views dominating in the GOP.

But it's sort of interesting to muse about the long-term. Let's say for the sake of argument that Iraq and eventually Afghanistan just sort of wind down, and there are no terrorist attacks or anything dramatic like that. And more and more tea partiers are elected to Congress over the next two or three cycles. And John McCain will be retired by then, or close to it, and Dick Cheney will be stewing in a Nigerian priso--I mean, enjoying retirement in McLean. It's not impossible to imagine, as Gewen seems to suggest, that the GOP could become an isolationist party again.

These fights for the souls of things almost never live up to billing, but it will be fascinating to watch the new tea party contingent in the House and Senate react when something bubbles up, especially if related to Israel, which is not an isolationist preferred vacation spot.

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Letting the Bush tax cuts expire | Michael Tomasky

If only we had the Hollywood version of President Obama, we might hear him say, 'The hell with these tax cuts for millionaires'

I have been dismissive of the idea that Obama should go ahead and let all the tax cuts expire and try to fix blame on the Republicans. But here's Krugman today:

[…] while raising taxes when unemployment is high is a bad thing, there are worse things. And a cold, hard look at the consequences of giving in to the GOP now suggests that saying no, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, is the lesser of two evils.

Bear in mind that Republicans want to make those tax cuts permanent. They might agree to a two- or three-year extension – but only because they believe that this would set up the conditions for a permanent extension later. And they may well be right: if tax-cut blackmail works now, why shouldn't it work again later?

America, however, cannot afford to make those cuts permanent. We're talking about almost $4tn in lost revenue just over the next decade; over the next 75 years, the revenue loss would be more than three times the entire projected Social Security shortfall. So giving in to Republican demands would mean risking a major fiscal crisis – a crisis that could be resolved only by making savage cuts in federal spending …

So Mr Obama should draw a line in the sand, right here, right now. If Republicans hold out, and taxes go up, he should tell the nation the truth, and denounce the blackmail attempt for what it is.

And here's a snippet from something I just read on HuffPo:

Amidst the talk of capitulation, Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) suggested that rather than extend current rates for two years in exchange for other tax-cut goodies and unemployment insurance, the party might simply let all the tax cuts expire. After all, the president could come back next Congress and build his own package of middle-class tax cuts, branded under the Obama (not Bush) name.

"There are lots of people in our caucus who do have that appetite [to let all rates expire]," said the New York Democrat.

Well, should we take this view seriously? I see what Chuck is getting at. But the question, it seems to me, is: could Obama really come back next year and get a tax-cut package passed? There's nothing in the way the Republicans have acted in the last two years to make us think this would be possible. If there were, it's a nice idea. But there's not.

Now, maybe Obama and the Democrats could be clever enough to structure a package that contained a lot of favours for various GOP constituencies. Maybe they could throw into the bill a couple of other longstanding GOP priorities that they felt they could live with, just to make Republicans feel the heat and have to think about voting for it.

But why should we be confident the Democrats are going to be clever enough to pull this off? Or that they'd stand together?

As to Krugman's point, I agree that the country can't afford to make the cuts permanent. But Obama would be committing suicide if he let the cuts expire. Some days, I think, you know, maybe he should just say: "The hell with this, I'm letting them all expire, because we can't afford to give these breaks to multimillionaires, it'll destroy Medicare and Social Security, and that's their game, and I'm not playing it, and from now on I'm just gonna tell people the truth about where we stand, and if I lose, I lose."

That only happens in the movies. But it sure would make life interesting!

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Letting them expire | Michael Tomasky

I have been dismissive of the idea that Obama should go ahead and let all the tax cuts expire and try to fix blame on the Republicans. But here's Krugman today:

...while raising taxes when unemployment is high is a bad thing, there are worse things. And a cold, hard look at the consequences of giving in to the G.O.P. now suggests that saying no, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, is the lesser of two evils.

Bear in mind that Republicans want to make those tax cuts permanent. They might agree to a two- or three-year extension — but only because they believe that this would set up the conditions for a permanent extension later. And they may well be right: if tax-cut blackmail works now, why shouldn't it work again later?

America, however, cannot afford to make those cuts permanent. We're talking about almost $4 trillion in lost revenue just over the next decade; over the next 75 years, the revenue loss would be more than three times the entire projected Social Security shortfall. So giving in to Republican demands would mean risking a major fiscal crisis — a crisis that could be resolved only by making savage cuts in federal spending...

...So Mr. Obama should draw a line in the sand, right here, right now. If Republicans hold out, and taxes go up, he should tell the nation the truth, and denounce the blackmail attempt for what it is.

And here's a snippet from something I just read on HuffPo:

Amidst the talk of capitulation, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) suggested that rather than extend current rates for two years in exchange for other tax-cut goodies and unemployment insurance, the party might simply let all the tax cuts expire. After all, the president could come back next Congress and build his own package of middle-class tax cuts, branded under the Obama (not Bush) name.

"There are lots of people in our caucus who do have that appetite [to let all rates expire]," said the New York Democrat.

Well. Should we take this view seriously? I see what Chuck is getting at. But the question, it seems to me, is: Could Obama really come back next year and get a tax-cut package passed? There's nothing in the way the Republicans have acted in the last two years to make us think this would be possible. If there were, it's a nice idea. But there's not.

Now, maybe Obama and the Democrats could be clever enough to structure a package that contained a lot of favors for various GOP constituencies. Maybe they could throw into the bill a couple of other longstanding GOP priorities that they felt they could live with, just to make Republicans feel the heat and have to think about voting for it.

But why should we be confident the Democrats are going to be clever enough to pull this off? Or that they'd stand together?

As to Krugman's point, I agree that the country can't afford to make the cuts permanent. But Obama would be committing suicide if he let the cuts expire. Some days, I think, You know, maybe he should just say: The hell with this, I'm letting them all expire, because we can't afford to give these breaks to multi-millionaires, it'll destroy Medicare and Social Security, and that's their game, and I'm not playing it, and from now on I'm just gonna tell people the truth about where we stand, and if I lose, I lose.

That only happens in the movies. But it sure would make life interesting!

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When is 36 > 50? | Michael Tomasky

As you may have noticed over the weekend, 36 is greater than 50 when you're talking about the US Senate, where a functional "majority" of 36 managed to block a tax-cut bill over the weekend.

Actually there were two votes. The first on keeping the Bush-era cuts for all households under $250,000. The second on the Schumer compromise, which would have raised the top rate on income above $1 million. The first one got 53 votes for, 36 against, with 11 not voting. The second got 53 votes for, 37 against, with 10 not voting.

You might think that something that passed 53-36 or 53-37 had, you know, passed. But this is the Senate. A bill needs 60 out of 100 to pass. So these two bills, opposed by barely 40% of voting senators, failed.

So now Republicans in both Houses (the House of Representatives voted last week) are on record defending millionaires only. Maybe Democrats will be able to use these votes in 2012 campaigning. But it doesn't alter the reality of now, which is that the Republicans are going to win this one.

It's being reported that a deal is coming soon whereby the Bush tax rates will be extended for all for two or three years, and the White House will get an extension of unemployment benefits out of it. I'm actually not sure why the Republicans would agree to this. Maybe they have polling showing that refusing to extend these benefits is unpopular. But they've done it before and I don't see why they wouldn't do it again. They hold all the cards here.

One thing I've been bothered by here is the White House's opposition to the Schumer position. From everything I've read and heard, the opposition is Obama's personally, and it's on the merits: Obama thinks Schumer's millionaires proposal would in effect establish the idea that anyone earning $400,000 or $800,000 or $999,999 is "middle class," and the Democrats shouldn't have any truck with that idea.

I can see that. Some liberal Democratic senators voted against Schumer for that reason (interestingly, including Dick Durbin, Schumer's chief rival to succeed Harry Reid as party leader). But I still think the idea of making Republicans defend million-dollar households had a lot of political merit. The really interesting thing about the Schumer vote is that all the Democrats from red states who are up for reelection in '12 who'd voted with the GOP on the question of raising rates on households above $250K - Ben Nelson, Jim Webb, Joe Manchin - voted the Democratic position on Schumer. In other words, they weren't afraid of being call tax-hikers if the only people in question were million-dollar households.

And at least, if it had carried the day, an actual Democratic proposal would have won. But I guess it too was destined to fail. Liberals are going to want to pin this on Obama, and it's true the White House really botched this over the course of the year, but there's plenty of blame to go around. The question now is: is this a low point, or will things get worse?

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Tom Harkin, dramatic but wrong | Michael Tomasky

Whenever a senior Democrat says something like this, people tend to take notice, because after all it's a very grabby thing to say. From HuffPo's Sam Stein:

When leaving a Senate Democratic caucus meeting late Thursday night, most members declined to answer questions about the White House's role in the tax cut negotiations. But the few who did talk didn't exactly hide their sadness over the state of affairs.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), for one, slyly acknowledged that he'd get himself in trouble if he answered whether or not he was happy with the administration's engagement.

"You want me to be the [troublemaker]?... I'm too junior around here to do that," said the 86-year-old, five-term senator.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) did a little less dancing. "I just think, if [Obama] caves on this, then I think that he's gonna have a lot of swimming upstream [to do]," said the Iowa Democrat, a unabashed progressive who has been less reticent than most in criticizing the White House. "He campaigned on [allowing the rates for the rich to expire], was very strong on that, and sometimes there are things that are just worth fighting for."

And if he decided to compromise away from that, a reporter asked the senator.

"He would then just be hoping and praying that Sarah Palin gets the nomination," Harkin replied, insinuating that there would be few other Republicans that Obama could assuredly beat in 2012.

Very dramatic. But wrong. Right? The outcome here that would put Obama in the most difficult spot re 2012 is one in which taxes go up on people under $250,000. That's the one thing he kept saying he wouldn't do. If that happens, he'll be pounded on that into submission and quite possibly/probably defeat.

Whereas if he extends the upper-bracket cuts for a couple of years, Tom Harkin and I and many others like us will be mad. But we and people like us are going to vote for Obama in 2012.

If the White House does manage to get some jobless benefits extensions thrown into this legislation, that's not a completely hideous outcome. The thing is Obama and his people have to learn from this. As one of you said, or someone I read said, they should have been all over this publicly, as soon as healthcare ended.

But when a high administration official has to go to a big liberal dinner and plead with people not to jump off the bridge a la George Bailey, things are pretty bad.

But tomorrow is an exciting day of college football, and I'm doing some Christmas shopping in the morning, which I enjoy, and a photographer is coming over to take some family portraits. I will post another pic of Margot soon. She's coming along quite nicely! So many things are still right with the world.

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Pinkerton file: Obama or the Dems' fault? | Michael Tomasky

I told Brother Pinkerton about the interesting exchange some of you got into the other day about whether the Democrats' present woes were the fault of Barack Obama or whether the blame had to be more broadly distributed. He worked in two White Houses, Reagan's and Bush 41's, so I thought he might be able to offer us some insight into the question of intraparty executive-legislative relations and so on. Here is what he had to say:

MT and CIF-ers are vexed on the question of who is to blame for the Democrats' troubles: Is it Barack Obama? Or is it congressional Democrats? Or the overall party? Or is it, perhaps, something about contemporary liberal-leftism?

Having worked as a domestic policy and political aide in two White Houses, Reagan and Bush 41, I can attest that there is little more evanescent than a president's ability to influence domestic events if the Congress is not interested in playing along. Through most of his presidency, Reagan had real power, because Republicans loved him and Democrats feared him. By contrast, on domestic matters, the elder Bush mostly had the "power" to surrender to the Democrats, who comfortably controlled both chambers of Congress. Every "compromise" Bush made - taxes, civil rights, clean air, guns - was really a rout. And of course, Bush himself was routed out of office in his 1992 re-election campaign.

So is Obama weak because he, personally, is weak? Surely he can't have changed that much in just two years. No, methinks that he is weak because he and his White House team, and congressional Democrats, and the left in general, have misjudged the country. If the country thought that "cap and trade" was a good idea, the legislation would have passed. Same with full civil liberties for accused terrorists. If the country thought that Obamacare, as enacted, was a good idea, Democrats who voted for the bill would have been re-elected, not defeated. If gay rights were a popular cause in the heartland, the heartland would be blue, not red.

Obama strikes me, even now, as admirably suited to be president of the Northeast and the West Coast - literally the coast, as in, touching the Pacific. And the Democrats, too, have a firm grip on those parts of the country. But the rest of the country is a good deal different, as such progressive heroes as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Tom Periello of Virginia discovered last month.

Without trying to sound unduly Mackinder-esque, the GOP seems to be in pretty firm control of the middle of the country, and with that control, most seats in Congress, most electoral votes, and thus the country itself. So that's a problem for Obama today, as he pushes such issues as "don't ask don't tell," START, and renewed environmental activism, ignoring the reality that most of the country wants to cut spending, expand the economy, and crack down on immigration. And of course, both US parties are scratching their heads over newest Nobel Peace prize winner's war policy in Afghanistan.

Obama's leadership skills may be less than were promised in '08, but his agenda-setting skills are vastly worse. As a veteran of the Bush 41 White House, I can tell you where that leads: first, to a fascination with foreign policy, where presidents have more of a free hand, and second, to an electoral Dunkirk.

MT again: I would point out that substantial majorities support DADT repeal and even (to a lesser but still strong extent) a carbon tax. So I think it's a little more complicated. But I would like disagree with this post more than I do.

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Shocking jobs numbers | Michael Tomasky

Today's jobs report is so bad I almost suspect there's something wrong with it. Economists across the board were expecting around 150,000 private-sector jobs. A report came out earlier in the week saying that November hiring was the best in three years.

That report had November hiring at 93,000. Today's government report says 39,000. Maybe the person who put out the release is just dyslexic?

It's weird. After all, the DoL also revised the previously stated September and October numbers upward. So maybe they'll do that next month with today's figures. Whatever the case, they're terrible. And the unemployment rate is back up to 9.8%.

I was really starting to feel we were climbing out of this. I say that not for Obama's sake or the Democrats', but just as a citizen, for the sake of the country and the world economy and those affected. I'd been reading lots of anecdotal stuff on manufacturers starting to hire up again, and the October revision and the earlier employment report all had me (and a lot of people) thinking that we were maybe finally on our way and recovery would come by spring. It still may. But this is depressing news.

And on the political front, it's now hard to figure how many jobs need to be gained per month by October 2012 (reelection time) for the unemployment rate to be back down to something like 7.5%. I'm sure they're fretting over this at the White House aplenty.

US economyObama administrationMichael Tomasky
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